


Forbidden Fruit

by Annfan



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence, Drug Use, Dubious Consent, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Light Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-06-28 03:15:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15699015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annfan/pseuds/Annfan
Summary: Kate feels drawn to Seth in a way she can’t explain, in a way neither of them are capable of expressing when he is sober.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written based on the request:   
> “ I wonder would you consider writing a little piece where Seth is high, she's taking care of him, and things get "fuzzy" for Kate?”
> 
> Hope you like it!

They made their way to a costal town and Kate had begged Seth to take her to the beach and he had. She had spun around in the damp sand in a stolen bikini and waded in the still too cool for swimming water. He had watched her with a rare smile. She can still taste the salty breeze on her tongue. The rhythm of the waves brushing up against her bare ribs as she danced her fingertips across the surface of the sea had soothed her mind even if only for a minute. 

 

She thought, maybe, it would soothe his mind too. She had laughed and splashed him with water as she rose out of the ocean and he had run after her, kicking up sand. She had skipped away, but not really away. She had been his captive once against her will, but now she let him scoop her up in his big arms.

 

He had spun her around to face him and they had both been laughing. But then he had stopped laughing and pulled her a little tighter to him, in a less playful and more desperate embrace. He held her there a minute, wrapped around her as if protecting her from something she couldn’t see, one hand resting on seawater soaked hair. She had seen his eyes as he pulled away and known then that even the ocean could not soothe Seth Gecko’s troubled mind.

 

It had been less than an hour after they got back to the motel with the sea foam colored sheets before he had opened that little black pouch and held up the needle like it was holy. Kate comes out of the shower, evidence of a normal day at the beach washed off her skin, and sees the all too familiar flickering of a flame under a spoon that is held by trembling hands.

 

She sits down in a creaky wicker chair across from the bed and watches silently as she towel dries her hair. Seth knows she is watching, but he doesn’t say anything, just wraps the cord around the black ink flames on his arm and slides the poison into his veins.

 

His mouth opens in a silent, pleased gasp, and he falls gently back to the bed. Kate puts down the towel and slowly walks over and collects the needle and unties the band on his arm, placing them with the rest of his paraphernalia on the table.

 

The first timetime he had shot up he had done it in the bathroom before staggering out and collapsing on the bed. She doesn’t know much about heroin but she knows enough to know that he had taken too much, unresponsive when she shook him, pleaded for him to say something, anything. She had fallen beside him at the bed and grabbed his hand, and cried and cried, and felt so alone.

 

He had apologized that time after the high had worn off, head hung with something that was almost shame.

 

“I just can’t be as strong as you Princess,” he had said, eyes downturned.

 

He never apologizes any more.

 

Of course she’s angry at him, how can she not be? She lost everything in that temple and she doesn’t try to numb the pain with something she can buy in a back alley. But she also knows that addiction is a powerful thing. She knows that the methodical ease with which he pushes a needle into his veins means it’s an old habit that has been brought back up again. She knows that Seth Gecko had been lost long before she ever met him.

 

Now she crawls up on the bed next to him, used a pillow to gently prop up his head. He hasn’t taken as much this time, he is still vaguely coherent, and he smiles up at her.

 

Seth looks so peaceful and she knows it’s wrong that she almost wishes he was always like this. She knows the happiness that he injects himself with is artificial and that one day it’s going to kill him if he keeps it up.

 

Kate numbly fantasizes about getting up and flushing the rest of his stash down the drain, fantasizes about him getting clean and being okay. But she knows that he’d just go out and buy more, and no matter what she does he isn’t going to be okay.

 

Instead she just kneels next to him on the bed and touches his face, smooths her hand across his brow in a way she never does when he’s sober. She runs her hand through his soft black hair and his eyes fall closed.

 

“Hmmm,” He hums, and he stretches his neck towards her touch. “Feels good.”

 

He stretches and reaches out blindly for her, large hand settling on her bare thigh that isn’t covered by the boxers she’s wearing as sleep shorts.

 

Kate’s skin tingles where the rough pad of his thumb scrapes clumsily across the soft skin above her knee. She knows she should push his hand away. She knows she should get up and go to her own bed and leave him to his drug induced sleep.

 

Instead she takes his hand and threads her small, slender fingers through his. She would never do this otherwise, never hold his hand like this if he wasn’t high.

 

Of course they touch each other, it’s impossible not to living in such close quarters. And after everything they both need the comfort that only contact with another living, breathing human can give. But there are distinct limits, unspoken boundaries that they don’t cross.Hugs don’t last too long, touches don’t linger.

 

There’s no cuddling or pillow talk. Sometimes Kate wishes there was. She tells herself that the longing she feels for his brief touches is just because she is so lonely and Seth is the only person she has. But deep down she knows it’s more than that.

 

She lets her gaze fall over his drooped eyelids and relaxed expression, lets her hands run across his scruffy beard and down his neck. She traces the swirling flames all the way down his arm and to his wrist. It must have hurt, she thinks, to have had such a sensitive spot stabbed with ink.

 

Seth’s eyes flicker open and he smiles that goofy, doped up grin. “That tickles,” He slurs out.

 

“Sorry,” she stops her movement, stills with one hand intertwined with his and the other resting just on his wrist where she can feel his slow pulse.

 

“S’ okay.”

 

His eyes stay open this time, even though they are still glazed over. His brow crinkles a little, like he is contemplating something. “You’re really pretty Katie,” he mumbles. “Really pretty.”

 

Seth gives her hand a soft, weak squeeze and she feels like she is floating even though he is the one with heroin coursing through his veins.

 

Sometimes she looks at Seth’s face and she sees the face of the man who pointed a gun at her head, the man who mocked her family and her faith, the man who could have let her family go but didn’t.

 

Other times she looks at Seth and she sees the man who loved his brother with everything he had, the man who could have left her and her father in the dark halls of that temple but ran back to save them, the man who fought monsters to keep her safe and let her ride off into the Mexican desert with him.

 

Right now she looks at Seth and she sees a lost, helpless man. She sees something not that different from herself. It scares her a little, but it also thrills her in a way. Who would have thought a preacher’s daughter could ever have anything in common with a wanted man. But they have an undeniable bond now, they’ve been through a shared hell that no one else could ever understand. And now, sitting on a motel bed, with the sounds of the ocean seeping through the door, Kate feels drawn to Seth in a way she can’t explain, in a way neither of them are capable of expressing when he is sober.

 

She knows Seth is a bad man. No matter how many creeps he punches to defend her virtue, no matter how many times he takes her to the beach it won’t change the things he has already done. She knows Seth is a bad man and she wonders ifthe want she feels for him makes her a bad person too.

Kate can’t, doesn’t want to, stop herself when she tucks her hair behind her ear and leans forward, still holding his hand when she presses her lips to his. She knows it’s cowardly, kissing him like this, when she knows he won’t remember the next day. She knows she’s taking the easy way out so neither of them have to face their feelings.

 

His lips are soft, impossibly soft when everything else about him is so hard and unforgiving. He tastes like liquor and convenience store tacos and his skin smells of sickly sweet sweat.

 

The kiss is short and sweet, she doesn’t really know how to kiss any other way. She had tried once, with Kyle, but it had been awkward and fumbling and in no way did it ignite the wanton hunger she feels with Seth’s lips under hers. She wonders, absentmindedly if he would teach her to kiss, really kiss, if she asked him. Maybe if she was more brave she would ask.

 

Seth lets out a small, soft groan, and responds with just the slightest bit of pressure up against her, and suddenly what she is doing is all too real and all too wrong. She pulls away like she’s been burned.

 

“Mmm, no don’t stop,” Seth murmurs sleepily.

 

Kate hurries away from the bed, locks herself into the bathroom and stares at herself in the dirty mirror, shame riding to her cheeks. Images of Seth’s blissed out facial expression, his full lips, his tussled hair run across her mind. She splashes cold water on her face, wipes it away angrily, and takes several deep breaths. She shouldn’t have done that, she thinks.Their first kiss shouldn’t have been like that. Everything else in her life is so screwed up though, why should this be any different?

 

When she finally gains her composure she opens the door, and creeps slowly back into the room. Thankfully, Seth is silent, unmoving on the bed, the only sound is of his slow steady breathing, interrupted by an occasional snore. Kate sighs and slips under the covers of her own bed. She pulls a pillow to her chest, holding it to her as if it’s a replacement for the embrace of another person. She doesn’t turn the light off before she falls asleep. 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Kate rolls over in bed, groggily opening her eyes to the light streaming through the open blinds.

 

“Time to rise and shine Princess,” Seth’s voice is saying. She resists the urge to burrow her face back into the pillow and looks up at him. He looks way too well rested for someone who spent the last night strung out on heroin.

 

Kate also notices, the more she looks, that he is not wearing a shirt, and she is suddenly significantly more awake. His hair looks a little damp, he probably just got out of the shower, and all he is wearing is a pair of black slacks. It’s not like she hasn’t seen him shirtless before, of course she has, but this time it’s different. This time she immediately remembers last night and what she did. This time, looking at his ridiculously sculpted abs she thinks he must have done a lot of working out in prison.

 

Before Seth can notice she is staring she looks away, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “What time is it?” She yawns.

 

“Almost 10, Sleeping Beauty,” Seth snarks, ruffling through a duffle bag and then pulling on a white undershirt. Kate is acutely aware of the muscles in his back as he tugs the shirt over his head, and she mentally chastises herself. She should definitely not be eyeing up Seth Gecko of all people.

 

Suddenly, a pair of jeans are smacking her in the face, shaking her out of it, as Seth throws some clothes at her.

 

“Get up, get dressed, make yourself look all pretty,” he waves his arm in her general direction.

 

Ouch.

 

She must look hurt because he sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, “I didn’t mean you don’t already look pretty, just get more glammed up than usual or whatever, I’ll be explain later.”

 

“Okay,” Kate says, and shuffles towards the bathroom. In the daylight, in this small little room, she is much more uncomfortable and self aware in just a T-shirt and Seth’s boxers than she had been the night before.

 

“Make it snappy,” Seth calls through the bathroom door once she closes it. “I’m gonna go get us some coffee, be ready when I get back.”

 

Once Kate hears the motel door close behind him she turns on the shower and waits for the water to warm up a little. She feels a little sticky from the Mexican humidity and she hates feeling dirty, even if she is on the run and living out of dive-motels.

 

God, sometimes Kate wonders why she ever made the decision to go with Seth Gecko. She could have gone home, could have lived with her Aunt Carol in Cincinnati. Heck, she probably could have stayed in Bethel and finished out her senior year of high school. Jessica’s family could have taken her in until she turned eighteen. Jessica’s Mom always treated her like a second daughter anyway. Thinking about Jessica, Kate has a sudden, sharp pang of homesickness, but she quickly reassures herself she did the right thing. She needs to find Scott eventually, and she isn’t going to get her friends involved with this evil that has torn apart her family. Seth Gecko is already involved, he was the logical choice considering all other options, she tells herself.

 

Kate strips off her shirt and the boxers and lets them fall to the cracked tile floor, analyzing her body in the mirror. She hasn’t taken the time since the Titty Twister to really look at herself. Her body has filled out a little more, not much, but her hips definitely have more curve. Her body doesn’t look like the dancer-demons at the strip club (and she’s not sure she wants it to, considering what they really were), but she thinks she is in pretty good shape. She traces her hand absentmindedly from her neck to her pale abdomen, thinking how much her body has gone through and still survived. The more she looks though, the more her mind wanders. Her mind starts to wander to someone else’s body, Seth Gecko’s body specifically. And then her mind starts to wander to what Seth’s body would feel like on top of hers.

 

Knock it off Kate, she tells herself, and jumps in the shower. Lusting after someone is a sin and she is pretty sure lusting after Seth Gecko is like a double sin. As the not very warm water washes over her body Kate wonders if she has some sort of weird sexual-Stockholm syndrome. Is that even a thing? She doesn’t think she does, but she hasn’t ever been attracted to someone like she has suddenly, uncomfortably, realized she is attracted to Seth. She gets out of the shower and angrily dries herself off as if she can use the towel to wipe away the guilt and the confusing feelings along with water.

 

Kate puts on a pair of clean pink underwear and her striped bra that is starting to get a little snug before she slides into what is currently her only pair of jeans. She puts on the shirt that Seth had thrown at her, a tank top he stole from an outdoor market. It’s coral colored and lightweight and a little more low cut than Kate usually wears, but it is pretty and more comfortable in the heat. She fluffs her hair a little and is just putting on some mascara and berry colored lipgloss when she hears Seth come back in.

 

“You done?” He calls.

 

“Almost!” She shouts back.

 

“I’m going to put our bags in the car,” he says.

 

So they are leaving, his words confirm Kate’s suspicions. She finds herself a little disappointed. They’ve only been here a few days and she likes this little beach town. She knows nothing is permanent though. Men like Seth don’t get to call anywhere home for long.

 

When she come out of the bathroom holding her small makeup bag the room is empty of any of their other minimal possessions and Seth is sitting at the table with his ‘I’m about to explain something and you better listen’ face on.

 

“So what’s going on?” She sigh and sits down and the table.

 

Seth grins and slides a cup of coffee across the table. “I’ve got us a way to get some cash, where if it goes right nobody gets hurt, or is even the wiser until we have long left this town.”

 

“Okay,” Kate says slowly and takes a sip of the lukewarm coffee, “I’m listening.”

 

“I knew you’d like the whole nobody gets hurt thing.”

 

Ugh, he can be so patronizing sometimes, she thinks.

 

“Anyway,” He continues, “our desk clerk this morning at this lovely establishment is a young gentlemen about your age named Jose.”

 

He wags his eyebrows at her suggestively and she has a pretty good idea of where this is going.

 

“That’s why you had me do this?” Kate gestures to her shirt and makeup. “I’m the distraction?”

 

“Yup.” Seth looks very pleased with himself. “This place only takes cash so the register is going to be nice and full, I just need you to get our guy Jose away from it long enough for me to clear it out.”

 

He stands up and walks over the where the crappy tv is barely hanging on to the wall before reaching around behind it and pulling the plug out of the outlet. “Tell him the tv is broken and you can’t get it on.”

 

“So I just make Jose think I’m a complete and total incompetent idiot?” Kate finishes the coffee and dumps the empty cup in the small plastic trash can.

 

“A cute incompetent idiot though,” Seth points at her.

 

“Oh right, of course,” Kate rolls her eyes. She flips her head upside down and fluffs her hair one more time, probably giving Seth a good look at her cleavage. “Lets get this show on the road,” she says. She adjusts the top so it dips down just a little more. She doesn’t have much going on in the chest department but hopefully it’s enough to distract Jose.

 

“Uh yeah,” Seth blinks, and oh my gosh, was he actually checking her out? Kate can’t tell, because his eyes quickly flit away and he tucks his revolver into his pants.

 

Jose is not very attractive, Kate thinks as she walks into the front office while Seth crouches in the bushes outside. He looks like he could be kind of cute when he gets older, not that Kate is attracted to older men or anything like that, but right now he’s got that whole lanky, bad posture, weird patchy facial hair thing going. Some people just shouldn’t try to grow a mustache because it’s never going to happen.

 

“Hola!” She flashes her pearly whites in what she hopes is both an innocent looking and somewhat seductive smile.

 

Jose perks up and puts down the cell phone he was obviously texting on.

 

“Yo necisito ayudar con mi television,” she continues. “Por favor?”

 

He frowns slightly and rattles off something that Kate doesn’t have the Spanish vocabulary to understand.

 

“Sorry,” she blinks, “um, Inglés?”

 

“Yes, I mean that I cannot leave the desk,” he explains in highly accented English. “I can call maintenance man for you?” 

 

“Oh,” she tries her best to look crestfallen. “I wouldn’t wanted to bother him. Besides, I was kind of hoping you could help me.” She twirls a section of her hair and gives him another flirty smile.

 

“Oh,” he says, and she can almost feel his gaze bearing down on her cleavage. Ugh. “If it is quick, yes I help you.”

 

“Thank you so much!” She gushes as Jose comes around the counter, “Muchas gracias!” She gives a covert thumbs up to the bushes where Seth is hiding and then leads Jose to room 104.

 

“See,” she sighs, picking up the remote and pointing it at the tv. “It won’t even come on...”

 

Jose frowns and takes the remote from her, trying it himself. He fiddles with the remote a while and then tries some buttons on the tv itself while Kate stands to the side and tries to look perplexed. Finally he makes a noise and looks behind the tv, grabbing the power cord.

 

“Here is your problem!” He laughs. “The television is not, how do you say...plugged in?”

 

“Oh!” She goes, “silly me! I didn’t even see that.”

 

“All fixed!” Jose declares, plugging it back in and turning it on. A soccer game blares loudly as soon as he does and he quickly turns the volume down.

 

There is an awkward pause as he turns back towards her and Kate silently prays that Seth has had enough time.

 

“Anything else you need?” Jose asks, looking her up and down.

 

“Oh, uh, I don’t know...I don’t think so.” Kate stutters.

“How long you stay here?” Jose questions, not making a move to leave and Kate is getting increasingly uncomfortable.

 

“A while,” she says, “I’ll probably be here for a while. Maybe a week, I don’t know.”

 

“Ah,” Jose lights up, “Well I only work until uh...quatro en la tarde, maybe I could show you around after? Show you the town?”

 

“That would be great!” Kate pretends to be excited at the prospect. “Yeah, I would love that.” Please leave, she silently wills Jose to go.

 

As if an answer to her prayers Seth bursts through the door. “Who the hell is this?” He shouts angrily at Jose. “Why are you talking to my girlfriend?”

 

The poor kid looks panicked. “Nada! Nothing! I don’t do anything!” Jose insists, scampering away.

 

As soon as he is gone Seth grabs Kate’s arm. “Nice work kiddo, lets go.” He pulls her to the car and throws open the passenger’s seat door for her. “We gotta get a move on, Jose is gonna notice the busted open safe sooner or later.”

 

“There was a safe?!” Kate isn’t faking her excitement now.

 

Seth peels out of the driveway in the “borrowed” sports car. “Yes there was. We are gonna be eating a nice dinner tonight. Heck, you can even go shopping if you want, Princess.”

 

If you don’t spend it all on heroin, Kate thinks. He’s always like this after a good score, elated, optimistic, but it never lasts very long and neither does the money.

 

“Yeah, maybe,” she says, quietly.

 

“You really did great,” Seth says seriously and she knows she shouldn’t, but she feels a little bit of pride at his compliment.

 

Kate knows she shouldn’t feel good about helping a criminal clean out a business’s money, but she does. “Thanks,” She says, ducking her head so she doesn’t have to look him in the eyes. She shouldn’t feel a lot of things that Seth Gecko makes her feel. She shouldn’t want his approval, or his praise, or his touch. But she does, just sitting next to him in the car she wants to reach over, take his hand in hers, feel this warmth of his palm and the roughness of his fingers like she did last night.

 

“Okay...I know you’re no chatterbox but you are never usually this quiet, what’s up?” Seth finally breaks the silence.

 

Kate wonders if he can see the blush that she can feel spread to her ears. “Nothing, just tired.”

 

“Really?” The skepticism in his voice is apparent. “Cause you slept like ten hours last night.”

 

“How do you know how long I slept?” She replies sharply. “You don’t know when I went to bed, you were too high.”

 

That seems to shut him up and they go another few minutes without talking. “I don’t forget everything when I’m high you know,” he says.

 

Crap, Kate thinks. He knows. He freaking knows. He remembers everything. She is so screwed. She analyzes his face for his trademark smirk or any indication that he remembers her kissing him, but he keeps his gaze trained on the road. Damn Seth Gecko, ninety percent of the time she wants him to shut up, but now that she actually wants him to talk he is enigmatically silent.She spends the rest of the car ride simultaneously wanting to crawl under the seat of the car in embarrassment or wanting to yell at him to tell her what he knows. Instead she just watches the landscape outside change once again from beachfront to dessert and she stays just as silent as him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I lied. There was no kiss in this chapter! Sorry guys! It’s coming soon I swear! This little side plot just kind of took on a life on its own and I had to run with it. I promise it’s all leading up to some resolution for Seth and Kate though.


	3. Chapter 3

Seth is still being uncharacteristically quiet when they check into another motel after they put enough distance between themselves and poor Jose. It’s not a nice motel by any means, but it’s not completely terrible. There’s no black mold in the shower, or suspicious stains on the bedspread, and the air condition seems to actually work. The happiness Kate feels makes her realize just how low her standards have fallen. Gone are the days of staying in Holiday Inns with her family when her father had preacher’s conventions. Even the Dew Drop Inn was a step up from most of the places she now inhabits with Seth.

Kate throws her duffel bag down on the bed closest to the door and plops down in a scuffed chair. 

“Oh come on Princess,” Seth is saying. “don’t you wanna go out and celebrate? We got a good score.”

“Not really,” She shakes her head. “I told you, I’m tired.” 

“Okay,” he shrugs. “Well I’m gonna go get us some food. I’m starving. Don’t answer the door for anyone, and all that.” He waves the the keys at her as he heads out the door. 

“I know about stranger danger Seth,” she calls after him, “I’m not a child.”

He just chuckles in response and closes the door behind him.

Kate lets out a groan and flops down on the bed. Does Seth see her as a child? Probably. That would be just her luck. Some deep, shameful part of her had wondered if he had let her come along precisely because he didn’t see her as a child. She had wondered if he was attracted to her and if her age didn’t matter to him. The first night after the Titty Twister, once she had fully realized what she had done by climbing into a car alone with a criminal, she had almost been afraid of him for that reason. The man had kidnapped her family, he had robbed a bank, he had murdered lawmen in cold blood, who knew what else he was capable of? But he didn’t do anything and she began to come to the conclusion that he viewed her as more of someone to protect, like a younger sibling, than anything else. 

Kate is angry. She’s angry at herself because she doesn’t want to be feeling what she is feeling. She’s angry at her father for making her kill him and leaving her all alone. She’s angry at Seth for not being a black and white villain who would be easy to hate. She’s angry at God for letting her fall into the arms of the devil and for letting her like it. 

Kate flicks on the tv to try to get the invasive thoughts out of her mind, and one of the Harry Potter movies starts playing. She doesn’t understand any of it really, it’s all dubbed in Spanish, but she watches it anyway. Her family would never let her watch Harry Potter or read the books when she was younger, because “witchcraft is evil.” At this point in her life though Kate has seen true evil and she is pretty sure it isn’t in the pages of a middle school level book about wizards. 

She’s watching a scene where the main girl is punching a guy who seems like he deserves it in the face, when Kate hears the key in the door. Seth comes back proudly waving a bag of take out and they eat their chilaquiles in silence before Seth cracks them each a beer. 

“To a job well done!” Seth clinks his beer against hers and she smiles, just a little. 

Kate drinks the whole beer, and she’s had beer before, but only a few stolen sips at a party. This is much different than that. Kate knows she’s a lightweight, how could she not be? She’s young and small and has never really drank much alcohol before. She feels relaxed, much more relaxed than she has been in a long time, much more relaxed than she should feel, and she knows it’s the alcohol coursing through her system. She wonders absentmindedly if this is anything like what Seth feels like when he takes heroin. 

“You okay?” Seth must notice that she is staring off into space. 

“Hmm? Yeah, I think I’m a little tipsy,” she giggles. 

He chuckles at her lilting voice. “Yeah, I think so.” 

“Feels good,” She says, because it does. 

“Yeah, it does doesn’t it?” Seth cocks an eyebrow.

Kate is suddenly reminded of the night before, of him telling her something else, something much different “felt good,” and she isn’t nearly drunk enough for the accompanying guilt to not come along with the memory. She is, however, just tipsy enough to say something about it. “I’m sorry!” She blurts. 

“For what?” Seth is confused, “For being a little tipsy? I’m the one giving booze to a minor, I’m probably the one that should be sorry if there is anything to be sorry about.” 

“No, for kissing you,” She blurts again. 

“For what?!” Seth is definitely confused now. 

“I kissed you when you were high last night,” Kate blubbers. “You were high and I took advantage of you and I kissed you and I shouldn’t have...I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.” 

Seth is starting to smirk, ever so slightly, and Kate wants to die of embarrassment. “Well now, and I thought I was just having a real good dream.” 

Oh no, so he does remember. Kate hides her face behind her hands. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to! I don’t know why I did it. I shouldn’t have!”

Seth’s smirk disappears and is replaced with another, more somber facial expression that Kate can’t read. “It’s fine,” he says. “You’re a teenager, you’ve got hormones and all that shit. And it’s not like you have anyone else to experiment with,” he mutters. “You’re stuck traveling with me all the damn time, of course some of your wires are going to get crossed.” 

Kate feels terrible. Is that all he thinks of her? He thinks she was just using him as some sort of outlet for her uncontrollable teenage urges? 

“It’s alright,” he continues, “we’ll just forget about it, okay?” 

“Okay,” She says quietly, and she feels like she might cry. 

Kate throws her beer bottle away and makes her way over to the sink to brush her teeth. She is just spitting out the last of her Mexican store brand toothpaste when she sees Seth pull that little black pouch out of his bag. Not again, she thinks. She’s not even sure he’s fully sober from his last time. She walks over to him quietly and takes the pouch from him gently and puts it on the table, out of his reach. He looks up at her, surprised. 

“Please don’t,” she pleads. 

“C’mon Princess, this isn’t the time to talk about this,” he says, and he sounds defeated, “you’re tipsy and you need to go to bed, and I need a hit.” 

“Why?” She hopes she doesn’t sound too whiny. “Why do you need it right now? Is it my fault? Is it ‘cause of what I did?” 

“No, no. Of course not.” He reaches out tucks her hair behind her ear in a manner that is unusually soothing in comparison to his usual rough demeanor. She finds herself leaning in to his touch. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make it weird.” She apologizes anyway. She’s so scared of loosing him, scared of loosing him to the drugs, scared of loosing him because of her own stupid feelings. “I know you don’t see me like that.” 

“What?” Seth looks up suddenly, his hand dropping from her face and hovering beside her arm. “Of course I do.” 

“What?” It’s Kate’s turn to be astounded. “You do?”

“Yeah,” Seth chuckles, but it’s a bitter, mirthless sound. “Of course I fucking do. Every time I look at you I want you in ways that no good man should. You deserve better than me.” 

“Well then I must not be good either,” Kate says softly. “I didn’t just kiss you because of hormones or whatever.” 

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Seth shakes his head, “You’re drunk.” 

“I’m not drunk,” she insists. “I’m barely tipsy. I know exactly what I’m saying.” 

Seth looks at her, and then looks back at the black pouch on the table, then back at her. He starts to move forward but she blocks him, grabs his hand and pulls it to her chest, cradling it. “No, please.” 

He stops, still. 

“Please don’t,” She says again, and then she is leaning forward and pressing her lips to his. 

This time he is very much sober, and very much responsive. He groans into her mouth and then reaches forward and pulls her into his lap. Seth isn’t gentle or soft without heroin to smooth over his rough edges. He grips her hips firmly, hard enough that she wonders if it will leave marks, but she doesn’t really mind. She’d rather have him like this, alert and rough and fully himself, than docile and drugged up and mentally miles away from her. 

He breaks away long enough to mummer that they “shouldn’t be doing this,” but he doesn’t stop himself, he just moves his lips to her neck and and kisses right behind her ear in a spot that makes her toes curl.

“Who’s going to stop us?” She responds boldly, because she’s high on it, high on Seth, high on the thrill of knowing that there is no one to tell them no. 

Seth groans again, a deep throaty sound, and it goes straight to her core. His lips leave her neck and suddenly he is flipping her over on her back, pinning her small frame to the bed with his body. 

Kate lets his wicked lips kiss her all over. His tongue that is usually so adept at making threats is tracing previously untouched expanses of skin. Maybe what they are doing is a sin, Kate thinks. But she has committed graver sins. Kate Fuller has seen evil and all she knows is that Seth makes her feel the closest to heaven that she has in a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure yet if I want to end this fic here, or if I might write some more. Let me know what you guys think. I could continue with some more of the “aftermath” and their developing relationship, but I also think everything is resolved enough to leave it as is.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just FYI there is some light smut in this chapter.

Seth’s lips leave the area just above Kate’s collarbone, and he sits back, leaving her laying there beneath him, out of breathe and panting. He looks like he is exercising every last bit of self control he has to not pounce on her again as he runs a hand through his messy black hair and says “Look, Kate, I don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything you don’t want to. God knows I’ve already done enough to you.”

 

Suddenly Kate feels awkward and nervous, an inexperienced virgin with Seth Gecko looming above her, looking like he wants to eat her alive. But, she wants this. She wants him. And she really doesn’t want him to go back to the needle that is sitting within tantalizing reach on the table.

 

“I’m not doing anything I don’t want to do,” she says softly.

 

“Okay then.” That seems to be enough for Seth, seems to satisfy whatever limited moral code he has. He leans back into her, brushing her hair from her face and pressing an almost chaste kiss to her lips. She feels his other hand brushing over her exposed hip, pushing up the coral tank top and the touch electrifies her.

 

“Please,” she gasps, but she doesn’t knowwhat she’s asking for. She just knows there is a deep ache in her, a craving only Seth can satiate.

 

“Shhh,” Seth soothes, “I’m going to take good care of you.”

 

He helps her out of her shirt and she is left exposed to him in only her bra and pink panties. She resists the urge to cover herself with her hands. Sure, she and Kyle had messed around a few times in ways that didn’t quite leave room for Jesus, but no one has ever seen her like this.

 

Seth sees her tense up and he grabs one of her wrists, rubbing soft circles soothingly just above her pulse but also keeping her from moving her arm. “You ever done anything before?”

 

“No,” she blushes, turns her head away from him.

 

“Hey, hey, none of that,” Seth places a hand on her face and guides it back so she is forced to meet his eyes.

 

Then he is letting go of her wrist, leaning back to shrug out of his black T-shirt. He smirks, presses his body back up against hers. “Look, now we’re even.”

“Mhmhm.” She mumbles and he kisses her again, swallowing the noise.

 

She doesn’t even notice his hand snaking around her back to take off her bra until she feels the cool chill of the motel air condition brush across her nipples.

 

One hand caresses her breast and the other slides up to her neck, resting just below her jaw, thumb laying lightly over the hollow in her throat. Kate moans, and she’s only had one beer but she feels absolutely intoxicated. It shouldn’t feel this good, having the hands of a murderer wrapped around her throat. She should be afraid, but instead all she has is this twisted, agonizing need.

 

He kisses her again, nips at her bottom lip, pushes his tongue into her mouth. Kate doesn’t know what she is doing but she doesn’t have to. He takes control and she lets him.

 

Seth’s fingers travel below the waistband of her pink cotton panties, black ink covered arm making its way down her soft white stomach. He pulls her panties off and they are discarded with the bra. He touches her where no boy, no man, has ever touched her before and she cries out into his neck. He fills her up with his fingers and whispers praises and encouragement in her ear. “Good girl. You look so beautiful like this. You’re doing so good. There you go baby, gonna make you feel real good.”

 

Kate shudders, rocking against his hand, and waves of pleasure wash over her. She can practically feel the cross burning into her neck as Seth pulls away, leaving her debauched and empty.

 

She is still coming down from the high when he rips open a foil packet and slides it down over himself. She can see his hands shaking a little and she wonders if it’s withdrawals or nerves. She doubts its nerves, she doubts Seth Gecko ever gets nervous about sex.

 

Kate knows she could probably still say no if she wanted to, knows Seth would probably stop. He’d most likely lock himself in the bathroom to shoot up some more heroin but he’d stop. Kate doesn’t say no though, because she isn’t Kate Fuller: good little preachers daughter from Bethel, Texas anymore. No, now she’s Kate Fuller: kidnap victim transformed to criminal’s accomplice,on the run in Mexico. If only the ladies from church could see her now.

 

When he finally pushes into her it burns, it hurts, but she expected it to. All she does anymore is replace one kind of pain with another. The burn eventually fades into a slow throbbing, a good mix of pain and pleasure that sends her spiraling into another abyss. She gasps and writhes as Seth holds her down and takes everything she has left to give.

 

Afterwards he wraps his big arms around her, pulls her naked body close against his slightly sticky chest. She doesn’t try to wriggle away, it would be futile even if she did, his grip is like a vice. Seth Gecko has had a hold on her since the beginning. Kate has just traded one form of captivity for another but this time the cage is of her own making and she no longer wants to be set free. She falls asleep, trapped in his arms and little black pouch stays on the table, forgotten.

 

In the morning his arms are no longer wrapped around her and Kate feels a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. This is it, she thinks, he’s finally left her, just like everyone else. But then she feels the bed shift, feels the hot brush of his breathe across the back of her neck. She feels his fingers trail gently down her spine, like she’s fragile, like she’s something he doesn’t want to break. You’ve already broken me, she thinks.

 

“You awake?” He asks, and his voice is rough, barely out of sleep himself.

 

“Yeah,” She says back, turns and presses her body up against his. She presses her mouth to his as well, lets him deepen the kiss, and that’s that. There’s no pillow talk, no discussion of what they’ve done, just a kiss and then they get up and take showers separately and continue on with the day.

 

The days of the next week pass ordinarily, or at least ordinarily for this new life Kate now accepts as normal. The nights however are different. Seth never says anything, never makes a move until after he’s had a few drinks. Then he moves up against her, kisses her like he can pour all his sins into her and have them absolved.

 

Kate helps Seth hold up an American couple at an ATM. She holds the gun evenly, just like Seth has taught her, holds it to the man’s back, points it at the little obnoxiously colored flowers on his button up shirt. He begs her not to hurt them, and it takes her a moment to realize that they aren’t just afraid of Seth and his gun-waving and swearing, they’re afraid of her too. “We don’t want to hurt you, we just want your money,” She says, because she remembers what it’s like to be on the other side of the barrel. From the fear Kate sees in the wife’s blue eyeliner-lined eyes she doubts it makes a difference.

 

Afterwards Seth grabs her hand, squeezes it as they speed away. She feels bile rise in her throat. He’s laughing, beaming, and she reminds herself this is who he is, this is what he does. And it’s who she is now too.

 

They move to another town, a smaller one near the Guatemalan border that they have to drive for hours and hours to get to. Seth still insists on asking for two beds. She isn’t sure why, maybe he wants to pretend that she still has the choice to pull out of whatever this is that they have now. As if she ever had a choice with anything regarding Seth Gecko.

 

They’re sitting at the table in another motel, Seth nursing a glass of cheap whiskey and proudly watching Kate strip her Walther PPK, when she hears the words “Los hermanos Geckos.” It’s coming from the television they left playing the news on in the background. Seth hears it too, and they both turn around, whiskey and gun forgotten.

 

Kate’s Spanish might not be good enough for her to be considered proficient, and Seth’s certainly isn’t, but it’s easy enough to extrapolate what the news caster is saying. Dead. The gecko brothers are dead, burned in a fiery car crash.

 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” she says, staring at the burnt out husk of a vehicle on the screen.

 

“It’s Richard.” Seth’s jaw clenches as he says his brother’s name. “He’s trying to throw off the cops.”

 

“Well at least you know he’s alive?” Kate offers, because she doesn’t know what else to say.

 

Seth clenches his jaw again, so hard, so visibly that she wonders that his teeth don’t crack. “No he’s not,” he spits.

 

A photo comes up on the screen, mugshots, he and Richie in their heyday, the “worst criminal duo in Texas history since Bonnie and Clyde.” Kate realizes from the look on Seth’s face that this is the first time he has seen his brother’s face since that night at the Titty Twister.

 

Seth stalks over to the tv and switches it off. He spins around, gestures at the gun in front of her. “Again,” he commands, motioning for her to re-assemble it. She does, five more times, taking it apart and putting it back together until he is satisfied. His proud look from earlier is gone, replaced with a faraway stare, and he only gives her a curt, approving bod when she finishes.

 

They go to dinner at a little mom and pop place and Seth talks through the whole meal. He talks about movies and the best ways to pick locks, and about anything that isn’t Richie. He tells Kate all about a job he pulled in Salt Lake City, a solo job. She forces herself to laugh at the parts she knows are intended to be funny, hopes it will jolt away the glazed over look in his eyes. It doesn’t.

 

When they get back to the bed Kate peels off her outer shirt and her pants, crawls on the bed wearing just one of Seth’s white tank tops and a pair of blue panties with seasonally-inappropriate white snowflakes. She stretches out her bare legs, switches on the tv and starts watching some stupid reality game show. Seth walks past her, to the bathroom. It isn’t until the program is halfway over that she realizes he has been in the bathroom for far too long. She jumps up, flies across the room. No. No. No. He had been doing so well. The door is locked, of course it is. She beats on the door, shaking the frame. “Seth, open up, please.”

 

“I’m sorry Princess,” he croaks softly from the other side.

 

“Open the fucking door Seth!” She’s screaming now, crying. He can’t do this. But she knows, knows from the distant sound of his voice that it’s too late, he already has. Even if Kate busts down the door, snatches the needle away, she won’t be able to remove the poison from his veins. She slumps down the wall, pulls her knees up to her chest and sobs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back by popular demand! Haha. But seriously, thank you all so much for reading this and taking the time to comment. It really means a lot and keeps the creative muse going. 
> 
> Sorry for the angsty ending to this chapter, but I promise I’m not leaving them like this! There is more to come and they’ll get their happy ending.


	5. Chapter 5

Seth’s heroin habit becomes regular again. Kate doesn’t know what to do. She just watches, watches him destroy himself again and she can’t do anything about it. Their money starts running out again, the score from the ATM wasn’t enough to last for long, especially not when Seth is blowing most of it on the drugs. 

He robs a small pharmacy before they move on to the next town, comes out with more than just money. He has a few little yellow bottles of pills, pops some and chews them up before they hit the road. He washes them down with the contents of a flask, literally drinking and driving. Kate would laugh if it wasn’t so terrifyingly depressing. She notices he doesn’t sleep at all that night. The next day, once the stimulants have worn off he shoots up while she’s in the shower. She picks up the bloody needle off the bed, puts it on the bedside table, and pulls the blanket up around him. 

Seth Gecko is always mean, but he’s meaner when he’s itching for a fix. Some days, when they’re in-between scuzzy motels and he’s used up the last of his stash, his words are particularly biting. It’s not Kate’s fault that he’s a drug addict, it’s not Kate’s fault that his brother left him for that demonic queen bitch, it’s not Kate’s fault that the last three scores have been barely enough to buy food, much less heroin. None of it is Kate’s fault, but he acts like it is. So, he says things, cruel things, and responds to her worried touches and questioning stares with sharp insults and irritation. 

Kate responds in turn, says things that are even meaner, learns to give tit for tat. If he won’t respond to her softness she be hard and sarcastic like him. She’ll protect herself from his sharp temper with her own anger. She is still a teenager after all, if she knows how to do anything it’s talking back. Kate even throws Richie back at him, watches him shrink away from her words, wounded and silent. I learned from the best, she thinks. 

Some nights his hands shake, he can’t find a vein to inject, they have been stabbed too many times with too many dull needles. He doesn’t have to beg, she takes it from him, searches for the vein herself. Sometimes she gets it in his arms, other times she pushes his head back, slides it in his neck and watches him fall apart under her. Just a little bit off and she would kill him. She worries about it sometimes, the sickening feeling that this might be the time she messes up, this might be the time he doesn’t wake up. Other times she contemplates doing it on purpose, sliding the needle too far and at the wrong angle, watching him gasp and and drain of life like her father did. She doesn’t though, because she doesn’t think she’ll be sending Seth Gecko to heaven. 

They are somewhere in the great expanses of the Chihuahuan desert when the old car they’ve been driving finally breaks down. Seth curses and throws open the hood and stares at the smoke billowing from inside, up into the clear, brilliant blue sky. While he might be able to hot wire a car in his sleep, he is no mechanic, and they definitely aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. He curses again and kicks the tire. 

Kate stands patiently to the side and worries at the smooth metal of the gold cross that hangs around her neck. The sun is still above the endless horizon, not yet falling behind the sharp, brutal looking mountains that remind her of culebra teeth, but dusk is coming soon. Kate shivers, she can almost hear the coyotes howling, she can almost feel the cool night air brush across her arms. 

“Can we walk?” She asks timidly, once Seth has finished kicking the crap out of the hubcap. 

“Can we walk? Can we walk...” he mutters, pacing around the front of the car. “No we can’t fucking walk. We’re in the middle of goddamn nowhere.” 

Of course they are probably on one of the least trafficked roads in all of Mexico. They’ve been driving for hours and Kate hasn’t seen a single other car. Oh god, after everything she’s been through she’s going to die out in the desert from exposure. She never even found Scott. She shivers again, feels tears welling up in her eyes. No, no, no, she tells herself. She has to be strong. 

“Hey,” Seth snaps his fingers at her, “none of that.” 

She sniffs, blinks her eyes, tries to pass it off as just dirt. “I’m fine,” she hisses. 

He rubs tiredly at his eyes and turns away from her. She can see the tremor in his hands. 

“We gotta wait here,” he says. “Walking off into the desert is the stupidest thing we could do. Someone will come along eventually as long as we stay by the road.” 

“Okay,” She says. She trusts him even though she knows she shouldn’t. 

The sun continues setting, they crawl into the backseat of the car, legs pressed together, her small body curled up against his. He gives her a cereal bar. 

“Don’t you want some?” She asks.

“No,” he shakes his head. “Not hungry.”

She knows it’s a lie. He refuses the water she tries to give him too. They only have five bottles. Maybe he thinks dying in the desert for her will make him a martyr. 

The night is cold, bitterly cold. Seth wraps her in every suit jacket he has, wraps himself around her too. She still shakes, her teeth clacking together in her skull. Seth slips his hand under her many shirts to keep them warm, presses them up against her solar plexus in the valley between the softness of her belly and the sharpness of her ribs. His hands still shake all night long and she doubts its because of the cold. 

The next day, when the sun finally rises, Kate is so exhausted she could cry. Seth is shaking even more now, his lips are pale and his eyes sunken. 

“I’m not feeling so good Princess,” he manages to say before he throws open the car door and empties the meager contents of his stomach onto the sunburnt earth. 

Once he has stopped throwing up she forces him to drink water, makes him down a whole bottle despite his protests. Kate watches helplessly for the next few hours as he trembles and cries and falls down in the dirt, begging for something she can’t give him. Three months ago Kate would have loved to see Seth Gecko like this, helpless and weak. She would have run far and fast. But now she has no where to run to. Everything else she had has been taken from her and he is all that remains. 

He passes out at one point, slumped against the peeling paint of the car. She shouts and screams and slaps his face but his eyes just roll back in his head and his gaze refuses to focus on her face. She sits down beside him and waits. The sun is hot and the car doesn’t provide much shade and the hours begin to blend into each other. 

Kate is shaken out of her trance by the feeling of Seth’s hands around her throat. He has been mumbling for the past hour or so, eyes flitting back and forth, tracing things that aren’t there. Now he is screaming, in rage and terror, pressing her up against the hood of the car, hot metal searing into her bare thighs. 

“Seth, Seth no! It’s me,” she manages to choke out. 

It takes a moment but recognition appears in his crazed eyes and the pressure on her throat lessens. She gasps for air, hands flying up to cradle the spot he was just crushing. Seth falls back into the dirt and sobs out a string of garbled apologies. 

“It’s alright,” she says, once she can breathe again, even though it’s not. 

Kate kneels down in the dirt beside him, tries her best to wrap her small, thin arms around his large torso, tries her best to hold him and comfort him. He sinks into her embrace like a small child. She runs her hand through his hand soothingly. “It’s going to be alright,” she says and hopes she sounds more convincing than she feels. 

Seth finally stops shaking after another few hours and she gets him to drink half of another bottle of water. He insists she drinks the second half. The sun is just starting to go down again and Kate is trying to mentally prepare herself for another freezing cold night when they hear the sound of a car in the distance. Kate jumps up, the heat has worn on her but she is still quicker and steadier on her feet than Seth. She grabs her backpack and rushes out to the road. 

Kate throws herself in front of the oncoming grey minivan without hesitation. She knows how desperate she must look with her tangled hair, chapped lips, and bright red skin. The man inside steps on the breaks as soon as he sees her, the car skidding as it rapidly slows down from the 90 kilometer per hour speed limit. The man doesn’t hesitate to jump out. He looks to be about forty with a salt and pepper beard and the clothes of an average working man. He looks like he could be someone’s father, Kate thinks. His concern seems genuine when he asks her in rapid fire Spanish if she is okay. 

“Mi novio y yo necessitamos ayudar.” She points to the broken down car on the shoulder of the two-lane road. 

The man’s expression suddenly changes and clouds over with suspicion when he sees Seth staggering up off the ground. 

“You need help...I can call you the police,” he tells Kate in English, but his eyes don’t leave Seth. 

“No, no police,” Seth is suddenly by her side. 

The man starts to back slowly away. 

“Come on now compadre, we just need a lift,” Seth is saying in that practiced, smooth voice of his, that voice that says it’s all cool as long as you do what I say. 

The man is even more wary now. Kate can tell any chance of them doing this the easy way has flown out the window. 

“You look like you need a doctor, I’ll call you a doctor,” the man says. 

“We’re okay, no doctor,” Seth says at the same time he pulls his revolver from his pants and points it at the man. “We just need the ride.” 

The man’s jaw clenches, he glares at Seth, stares evenly down the barrel of the gun. 

“Keys,” Seth waves at him with the gun. “Hand ‘em over.”

The man tosses them, throws them to the ground. Seth rolls his eyes. “Pick ‘em up Kate.”

She obeys, picks up the keys and hands them to Seth who starts to make his away around the car to unlock the door. Kate sees the flash of the silver knife before Seth does. She isn’t even thinking when she lifts her own gun and points it at the man’s head. 

Kate has perfect aim, and she doesn’t miss, even with shaking hands. The explosion of sound is loud and hurts her ears. The man’s blood, along with other things she doesn’t care to think about, splatters her face. She smells the sickly scent of iron and gunpowder mixing together. She’s been covered in blood before, culebra blood, but this is the first time she’s felt another human’s blood on her skin. She is bent over, dry heaving, before the man’s body even hits the ground. 

Seth rushes over to her in the blink of an eye, wraps his arms around her as if he is protecting her from something. From what? She wonders. Herself?

“Son of a bitch. I’m so sorry, Kate. I had no idea he had a knife. Are you okay?” He takes her face in his hands, inspects her for the slightest bruise or bump, but the only blood he finds is not her own. “Shit, I should have seen it coming.” 

They dump the man’s body in a ravine and take the mini van anyway. They still got what they wanted in the end. Kate feels sick. The man had every right to fight back. He was a victim, an innocent person, just like she had been once. But unlike her he had actually had enough guts to try to defend himself. 

When they arrive at the motel that night the first thing Kate does is get in the shower. She doesn’t even close the bathroom door, just pulls her shirt over her head, slips out of her pants and underwear, and steps into the spray of warm water. Seth follows shortly after. She doesn’t see him, she is almost drowning her face with the water, eyes closed, letting it wash away the evidence of her sins. She can’t see him pull back the shower curtain and slip in behind her, but she feels him.

“It’s okay,” he says later, when she is curled around him in bed. “You did what you had to do. You did it to protect me.” 

That’s the problem, she thinks. She killed an innocent man to protect a bad one. She feels the steady beat of Seth’s heart under her fingertips and thinks it’s even worse that she doesn’t regret it. She’d do it all over again if the alternative was not being in Seth’s arms. It’s not healthy, Kate thinks, to hide from your monsters by crawling into their embrace. But nothing about she and Seth’s relationship has ever been anything close to healthy. 

She prays for the soul of the man whose body is still out in the desert, she’s not sure if that makes it better or worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Kate. Anyway, this is the next-to-last chapter ya’ll so the next one will end on a happy note.


	6. Chapter 6

“I’m going out,” Seth says one morning, doesn’t offer an explanation of why, and Kate feels her heart sinking. 

She prays while he is gone, begs God, begs anyone who will listen to not let him get anymore drugs. 

When he comes back his eyes are still clear and sharp, his speech unslurred, and she sighs in relief. If he did get drugs he hasn’t done them yet. When he turns she notices the bandage on his neck. She can’t stop the fear that starts pounding in her chest. 

“What happened?” She is almost afraid to know the answer. Images of knives and needles and sharp teeth flash across her mind. 

“Oh,” Seth sees the look in her eyes and quickly realizes the conclusion she has come to. “No, no I just got some more ink.” 

“Oh, good.” She relaxes back into the motel bed. 

He sits down beside her, shrugs out of his jacket, looks at her with an uncharacteristically serious look. “Hey Kate?” He takes one of her hands in his, rubs his thumb across the the little bones in the back of her hand. 

“Yeah?”

“No more shooting up,” he says. “I promise.” 

Seth isn’t an honest man, he’s a thief and a crook, and a killer. But he also doesn’t make promises lightly, and Kate knows that he always tries his best to keep his word. 

“You’re clean?” 

He smiles, a kind, soft smile, “Yeah, clean as a whistle.” 

“Good.” Kate says and she kisses him. 

The kiss is soft and lingering and hopeful. She lets her lips fall open at the soft brush of his tongue, welcomes him into her mouth. She kisses him and it feels right, it feels like home. She never wants to pull away but finally she does. She lets him guide her down to the pillows on the bed, lays back and lets him trace lazy circles across her arms and collarbones and kiss softly up her neck. 

“I love you.” He says suddenly, and it’s the kind of declaration she never thought she would hear him make. The way he says it is simultaneously so raw and vulnerable and he looks at her with a gaze that says he’d burn down the world with himself in it if she asked him to. She doesn’t think that those three words are words Seth has said to many other people. 

“I love you too.” She says back, without hesitation, because love has always come freely for Kate. Love is easy for her, too easy sometimes. She has told many people she loved them, her family, her friends, but she meant it every time, and she means it now. 

 

Seth lets her touch his tattoo once it’s healed, lets her trace the flames across the pulse in his throat, the place that Richie had sunk his fangs into, the place she had pushed a needle into. 

 

Kate doesn’t give up on looking for her brother, and Seth stops trying to prevent her from investigating the truths of the culebra world. She knows it still terrifies him, knows the thought of his brother still being out there eats away at him every day. But he remains silent when she comes back from a bookstore with a small manuscript full of cryptic and ancient words. He obverts his gaze from the pages, but rubs her shoulders as she sits hunched over the table, scribbling notes in her faux-bible. 

One evening Seth announces he has to make another run to the Mercado. Kate figures it has something to do with the woman he was talking about earlier, Sonja, the tattoo artist who does more than one kind of ink. 

Kate nods, settles back into her chair and flips the manuscript open to the last place she had marked with a piece of paper ripped from a free motel notepad. She is so engrossed in her work that she doesn’t look up when the door creeks open. 

“Honey, I’m home.” The chilling sing-song voice is most definitely not Seth. 

Kate jumps up, clutching the manuscript to her chest, her chair clattering to the floor. 

“Carlos.” She recognizes the man from that terrible night, remembers him standing on the stage like the ringleader of a debaucherous circus. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Covering up fear with four-letter words, isn’t that what Seth always does? 

Her faux bravery doesn’t seem to work, the predator keeps closing in. “Where’s the eldest Gecko?” 

She doesn’t respond, just glares back at him, wills Seth to come back from his outing. 

“Hmmm, not here is he?” Carlos eyes survey the room. “You’re afraid. I can hear your heart beating like a scared little mouse.” He pauses, head titling unnaturally. “Are you afraid of me little mouse? You should be, I’m a snake after all.” 

Kate narrows her eyes, tries to hold her ground. “I’m not a mouse,” she spits.

“Oh, what are you then, little one?” Reptile eyes look her up and down. 

She glares back, decides to come at this from the approach of the Seth Gecko school of shit-talking. “I’m a mongoose. I might be small, but I eat snakes.” With that definitive statement she goes for her gun, fires every round into Carlos’ black leather-clad chest. If she has to go out she’s certainly going to go out with a bang. 

“Kate!” She hears Seth’s familiar voice and the sound of a car engine. “Get in the car!” 

She doesn’t think twice before spinning on her heel and running to the car with nothing but her culebra bible in her hands. She’s not stupid, she knows those bullets won’t hurt Carlos for long and she doesn’t want to stick around. 

“Drive!” She yells, sliding through the window in a move she’s sure her 5 grade gymnastics teacher would be proud of. 

They sit in silence for the first half hour, Seth pressing the pedal the floor, both breathing heavily and glancing in the rear view mirror to make sure Carlos isn’t following. Finally, once they’ve both relaxed, Kate lets out a small, shaky laugh. 

“What exactly is so funny, Princess?” Seth questions, more bemused than irritated. 

She takes a deep breathe and recounts what she told Carlos. 

“A mongoose? What the fuck Kate?” Seth howls.

Kate starts actually laughing too, because now, thinking back on it, it’s pretty hilarious. Carlos could have killed her, but he didn’t, so she laughs. 

She’s Kate Fuller and she’s cheated death once again. She was always supposed to be the sacrifice; she never had a grand destiny like Richie or Seth. But she won’t lie down like a lamb for the slaughter. She might not be part of some ancient prophecy, but she’ll forge her own story. 

They both belly laugh for a while, and Kate thinks it’s the first time she’s ever seen Seth truly laugh like this. His eyes crinkle up at the corners and his mouth spreads into a wide grin. It’s a good look on him, she decides. When they lapse into silence again, he turns on the radio, blasts some old school rock music, and takes a swig of something that is most definitely not water. Oh well, at least he’s not doing drugs anymore. She know he won’t get drunk, she’s pretty sure whiskey runs in his veins at this point and she also knows he’d never put her life in danger. Kate lets it be because he’s actually happy for once and she knows when to pick her battles. She is still smiling when she leans her head against the cool metal of the car door and slips into a dreamless sleep. 

Kate wakes up to the sound of a car door closing and she sits up, adrenaline pumping through her veins until she sees it’s just Seth, climbing back into the car. She can see by the light of the glowing truck stop sign that he is clean shaven. She reaches out without thinking, traces his hand across his soft skin. He leans into her touch. 

“No more of the druggie-chic look, huh?” She smiles. 

“No,” he laughs, “hope you don’t mind.”

“I mean the beard was kinda hot...” she wiggles her eyebrows at him, “in a rugged, old man kinda way, but I like the smooth, suave, gentleman thief look too.” 

“Hey!” He protests, “who you calling an old man?” He leans toward, wiggles his hands up under her arms and tickles her, fingers dancing over her ribcage as she laughs and squeals. 

She stops his assault by leaning forward, pressing her lips to his. He moans into her mouth, teasing forgotten, and suddenly his hands are tangled in her hair, anchoring her to him. He kisses her like a dying man gasping for air. She folds her legs up under her, pressing her body into his. 

Finally Seth breaks away and she whines, trying to move up against him more. “Not right now baby girl,” he whispers, “we still got a lotta miles to go.” 

Kate leans back, still tingling. “Where are we?” She asks. She glances at the truck stop sign, it’s in English. 

“Texas, we crossed the border when you were asleep.” Seth explains softly. 

“What?” Kate blinks. 

“Yeah, I got us some papers. That’s where I was earlier.” He pulls something out of his jacket pocket, presses it into her hands. “Here ya go kiddo, it’s your diploma from the Gecko school of living on the lam.” 

Kate stares at the little blue book, turns it over in her hands. She opens it and sees her face staring back at her, the name Katherine Parker staring back at her. Katherine Parker can go anywhere, be anyone. 

Seth is quiet for a moment, somber. “You can go, if you want. You can take the car, to wherever you want, I’ll hitch a ride or something...” his voice trails off. 

How could he even think that? Kate wonders. How could he think that after everything she’d just leave? “I’m not going anywhere,” she cups his face, forces him to look her in the eyes. “I’m not going to leave you. I could never leave you.” 

“Okay then,” Seth smiles, takes her hand in his, doesn’t let go even when he starts the car back up and pulls on to the highway. 

“Where to?” Kate asks, leaning back in her seat. 

“My uncle’s got a place in Austin,” Seth says. 

“Okay,” Kate smiles. 

It’s not over, crossing the border didn’t erase the existence of culebras. Scott and Richie are still out there too and Kate has every intention of finding her brother. But it’s a conversation for another time. For now she has Seth and Seth has her and it’s enough. Whatever the future brings they’ll face it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys like it, I had a good time writing this one! 
> 
> And, yes, the last name I gave Kate for her fake passport is the same as Seth’s in the show, so they are totally posing as a married couple.


End file.
